A Quote to Start Things Off

""I'd love to go to Santa Fe at some point, Emmett said, but for the time being, I need to go to New York. The panhandler stopped laughing and adopted a more serious expression. Well. that's life in a nutshell, aint it. Lovin' to go to one place and havin' to go to another. Amor Towles in the Lincoln Highway.

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Pictures of Memories I

Pictures of Memories I
Snow kidding! These "kids" now range from 17 to 23

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Library Story with alternat(or) ending



Yesterday we continued one of our favorite family traditions: Library Week.

We generally will visit a number of libraries and spend the day exploring what they have. Our visit to the North Shore suburb of Highland Park was fairly typical.

We found the building . . .
















We entered the building.




















We read and relaxed.

















We played Games





















We made friends.


















And more friends














We took in the sights near the library.
















From there things became more atypical. 5 minutes after this picture was taken our car battery died. A family visiting the same lake shore view as us stopped and gave us a jump. We could tell within seconds after the car restarted that there was still something wrong. We had no lights and our emergency beeper would not turn off.



We rode about 6 miles (this was in dusk) and pulled over into a gas station that also happened to have a service station. Our alternator had gone out.
An hour and a 1/2 and a good amount of our emergency savings reserve later, we were on our way home. Besides the alternator and the somewhat burned (although still eaten) crock pot meal (due to our lost 1.5 hours) this was a very typical day at the library. (Except for the kids waiting at the gas station, certain people were tired.)

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Six Word Savior Day



I was going to title the post "six word Santa day" which sounds more like Six Word Saturday taking place at Show My Face dot com . I was also going to have my six words be simply: Merry Christmas from Home School Dad.

But, then I discovered another six words bounding down the chimney of my thought process:

Without the Savior; There's no Santa!

The legend that sprung out of the life of St. Nicholas is only possible because Jesus came down to Earth to become Immanuel (God with Us.)

Have a fantastic Holiday!


For more Six Word Saturday click here.

Monday, December 20, 2010

HOF 2011 Prologue

The 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame Writers ballot voting is underway. The results will be announced in early January. As I did for the 2010 voting, I will be breaking down the vote in several previews over the next few weeks. I will again reveal how I would vote if I were A voting member. I will also predict how I think the voting will turn out.

My predictions last year were (with actual results in bold):

  • I think there will be 1 player elected to the Hall this year and I think that player will be Andre Dawson.One player was voted in and that player was Andre Dawson.

  • I think the top 3 vote getters will be Dawson, Roberto Alomar, and Bert Blyleven. The top 3 vote getters were Dawson, Alomar and Blvleven.

  • Along with Alomar I think 3 other first ballot players are likely to get more than 5% of the vote and stay on for 2011. They are Barry Larkin, Fred McGriff, and Edgar Martinez. 4 first timers were on the ballot received at least 5% of the vote (needed to remain on the ballot in coming years). These 4 were Alomar, Larkin, McGriff and Martinez.

Yes if you are scoring at home I went 3 for 3 in my predictions. Don't believe me? Click here for my predictions and here for the results.

I'll be back shortly after Christmas with a full HOF preview.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Lego Robotics











Our family spent all day today in a Jr High gymnasium. Sounds like fun, huh? Actually it was. My son was in a regional competion for Lego Robotics today. There were several facets to the competition, but the best part was the awards ceremony. His team didn't win any of the first place awards in the four competition categories . However, they were 1 of 4 teams in the regional to advance to the state finals!! Go Spider Droid Go!!








Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Carnival of Homeschooling @ Homespun Juggling

One of my favorite blogs is celebrating one of my favorite numbers today at the Carnival of homeschooling. What blog? Homespun Juggling. What #?

Well let's say you read 2 blogs that post exactly 3 times a day every day. By the end of 1 week how many posts have you read? Thats (2*3*7).

I was unable to contribute this week but there are at least 42 reasons to check it out!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I saw the movie The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last night. I took my oldest son and daughter to see it with me. They will be putting their reviews in their blogs in the coming days.

I thought it was an excellent film. Roger Ebert suggested seeing it in 2-d rather than 3-d, advice with which I heartily agree. In one way it is a "reimagining" of the book. The book is a series of adventures without a specific focal point. The movie incorporates a minor plot device from the book and turns it into a specific focal point that all the adventures emanate from.

This choice, in my opinion, allows the movie to deviate in many ways from the book while still maintaining the integrity of the book. For example, two adventures take place on the same island in the film where they took place on two different islands in the book (and in inverse order) . I was glad that the books integrity was kept in this film as I thought that the movie version of Prince Caspian made changes to the characterizations that were much different portrayals than on paper.

Unfortunately some of my favorite parts of reading Dawn Treader were kept out of the movie adaptation. Dawn Treader has one of the best opening lines I have ever read: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." As I have taught my co-op students when I taught the Narnia books last year, in one line C.S. Lewis introduces a new character and tells you of his character. This is just one example of how a great movie about a great book still cannot replace the book.

Next Time: A funny thing happened on my way to home school.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Alice predicts Paul Konerko's next team.


Paul Konerko
Originally uploaded by chicagogrl95
We have this thing in our house called doing an Alice. It's based on a Brady Bunch reference. There was a big football game and Greg's team won. The family came home told Alice they won and she pulled out a big cake said Congratulations. Mrs. Brady then asked Alice what she would have done if they lost she proceeded to take a second cake out of the fridge that said better luck next year.

Sometime today or tomorrow it will be announced if Paul Konerko will be the White Sox next year or if he will be going to another team to finish off a stellar career.

When he makes his decision, I will make an announcement at Crazy Uncle Dave's. Until then, let me go ahead and do an Alice ...

Congratulations on your new deal Pauly Longball (a nickname I gave him). Looking forward to having you back. Rings in 11!


Go way down to see the other cake.
















































Pauly! We will miss you. Good luck with your new team. Thanks for all you did for the team. Thanks especially for taking a home town discount in 'o5 instead of heading to the Angels for the cash.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Ron Santo - My memories





Cubs legendary third baseman Ron Santo died on Friday at the age of 70. Over the past few years many people have written about his quest to make baseball's hall of fame.is His death due to complications of cancer has increased that talk many fold.




This will not be one of those posts. I will just concentrate on some thoughts about growing up a Ron Santo fan. In the early 1970's I was a Chicago Cubs fan. These were the days of Billy Williams, Rick Monday, Glen Beckert, Randy Hundley and Jose Cardenal. My favorite players of that era were Ron Santo and Don Kessinger.




Some where between 1972 and 1973 I changed baseball allegiances from the Cubs to the White Sox. Within the next 3 years both my two favorite Cubbies followed suit. More about Kessinger at a different time. I will confine my thoughts to Ronny today.





Shortly before the 1974 season Santo was traded to the White Sox. As a big fan of his I was ecstatic. I did not realize that Santo himself was less than thrilled about the change in venue. He was basically forced away from the Cubs. They had wanted to trade him a few years before and were unable to do so because he had earned the right to approve all trades.

Santo with a lifetime batting average of .279 with the Cubs only hit 83 of375 (.221)for the White Sox splitting time between Second Base and Designated Hitter. (Bill Melton was firmly entrenched at Third, Santo's position with the Cubd hiss). Only 9 at the timeI did not realize how bad a season he was having. I learned later that he was contentious in the club house often complaining the star treatment my other south side hero Dick Allen was receiving.


After a miserable 1974 Santo decided to stop playing baseball. He returned to Chicago as a radio announcer on WGN in 1990. I remember helping my dad work in his garage when Santo announced his first game. If Santo ever makes it to Cooperstown it should be as a player. As an announcer he was brutal! The day he died, WGN did a special day of tribute for Him. Even then, some of the WGN announcers commented on what a bad (technically) announcer he was and how the Cubs were the only team he could have ever worked for.


This was of course, because he wore his love for the Cubs on his sleeve. He may not have been much of an announcer, but he was an excellent cheerleader. No one ever expected unbiased reporting from Ron, and I don't think anyone ever got it.
There is a lot more that I can and should say about Mr. Santo. But for now, I will just say I will miss you.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Four Year Old Follies (Ending Soon)
















Puppy came up to me with her nose wrinkled up, and said, "Mom, are my letters wiggly or funky?" After stifling laughter, I said her letters are perfect. Look at that G! Secretly thinking, where did this girl come from? She's about to turn five, so who knows what the next year will bring.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Six Word Saturday: The Video



My Six Words: The making of a prima donna.




For more six word Saturday click here.

Next Time: Nablopomo rewind

Thursday, December 2, 2010

One Last Christmas

Mommy's Idea


Friday Fragment time is as easys as 1-2-3, Episode 123, that is. I have decided to save the title fragment for last because if you are anything like me you will be bawling so much you won't be able to defragment any of the other sundry items.

The 2006 2007 t.v season was the last season that we were able to watch television the old fashioned way (via airwaves). Since then t.v. shows have only been seen on the television via d.v.d's on the computer via sites such as hulu.The 2006 2007 season was the first of four seasons for the show heroes. For whatever reason, I didn't see any part of the show in it's 4 year run. In the past 3 weeks I watched every episode of season 1 on dvd's borrowed from our local library.

I just borrowed season 2 today, so I must have liked Season 1. I did. But it was certainly much different than imagined. I was thinking kind of a super heroes among us light hearted romp.

Light hearted? Not so much. As I watched each episode I was reminded of one of my favorite lines from City Slickers : "Let's think back on what we've buried so far."

Lots of death, lots of blood, lots of gore. I always had to watch it away from my children. It is strangely compelling and does use excellent storytelling. But come on guys, tone it down on the crazy watchmaker dude!
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There are some things I can't tell you, but there be some exciting in our home school lives in the coming future. Some of the stuff will probably not pan out, but I will tell you all about it when I am more free to talk about it. One thing I can say now, that I will be posting far less this month as Amy and I are going to be working on some book ideas.
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This week I discovered the most amazing teaching tool of all time, The Dry Erase Board.

It's amazing! It's revolutionary. If it only sliced and diced vegetables, I'd hawk it on late night television.





Seriously, it rocks. I use the 1 pictured above on the wall. I use a smaller one at the table. All the kids love using them. I am going to buy 2 or 3 more tomorrow. I was telling the kids the night before I bought them, about the concept of the parking lot. You know, where you put ideas and questions that you are going to get too later. When I brought the boards home the first thing Spider Droid wanted to do was start a parking lot.
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I was on facebook today when I saw a link for the video below. I usually don't watch videos on facebook as I am usually too busy playing Farkle and Tetris. I made an exception for this one and was moved to tears.

The video and the song are a tribute to the Locke family from Washington, Il. whose son Dax died from Leukemia Dec 30, 2010.



To find out more about this family click here. The Family is trying to raise 1.6 million dollars to donate to the hospital that treated for their son. The money would run the hospital for 1 day. To donate go to Matthew Wests site.

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That's all I have for today, fragmentally speaking for more Friday Fragments head over to Half Past Kissing Time.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday, The Video

A to Z 2023 Road Trip

#AtoZChallenge 2023 RoadTrip